Avery James Photography

Thursday, June 9, 2011

It's been awhile, but I have a good excuse this time...I was off celebrating turning 30 in the tropical paradise of Florida!! I just got back two nights ago. This was seriously the BEST vacation and birthday I've EVER had.

My son (Caydan) and I left Los Angeles for Florida for 3 weeks. We stayed with a friend in Naples, FL for a few days, went boating and just had so much fun catching up and hanging out with her family. Then we went to Orlando where my friend from L.A. flew in to hang out with us for 5 days...we explored Sarasota and Siesta Key (best beach EVER!!), Cocoa Beach, Downtown Orlando, and the Disney Wilderness Preserve. Then after she left Caydan and I headed to Busch Gardens for the first time ever, explored the Kissimmee and Celebration area, then headed back to Naples again for a night with a stop in Siesta Key again along the way. After Naples we went to Miami to stay with another friend who lives there and got to explore the South Beach area and catch up with my good friend. :) THEN after all that, we headed back to Orlando where we gave up the rental car and hung out at Disneyworld for a week while I turned 30! Absolutely AMAZING trip.

I couldn't begin to tell you all of the super fun things we did and saw...BUT I can show you. I made this pretty awesome (if I do say so myself) slideshow from our photos and videos....it's a combination of 3 different cameras (horrible quality point and shoot, really neat underwater camera, and my big, fancy professional camera) with pics taken by both Caydan and myself. Yes, my 5 year old son is becoming quite the photographer. :)

I urge you to check out the video, especially if you're thinking about visiting Florida - there's lots of fun stuff highlighted in it. :) And it's got some great music to jam to while you're watching. :)

ALSO - if you are thinking about planning a Disney vacation (World, Land, Cruise, Adventures, etc.) I'm friends with an absolutely wonderful Disney travel agent who helped to book my trip and was so helpful. Much better going through her than having to go directly through Disney like I did last year. She did all the leg work for me and made sure I had everything I needed. :) :) Here's her contact info:

And just to leave you with a picture, here's one from the Disney Wilderness Preserve near Kissimmee, FL. We learned that those funky things growing out of the ground are called "knees"...well, technically a "Cypress Knee" but we just called them "knees" everytime we saw them. :)

P.S. There was an alligator hanging out here with us too! He jumped in the water when we walked up and was just chilling in the water watching us from a distance...it was pretty creepy!